Verses 1-2: “His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.”
Photo credit: Clay Banks
Today we begin in the Beatitudes. These “blessed are” statements start off the longest teaching of Jesus recorded in the scriptures. While each statement certainly has meaning and value yet today, we will focus on the whole. Much of Jesus’ teaching pointed to a bigger picture. That is part of what he is doing with the Beatitudes. As a whole these statements paint a vision for the beloved community, for the church. A kingdom-living community of faith will reflect and live out these ideals.
Much of what Jesus said was counter-cultural and it remains so today. To be a peacemaker or to be humble, to be willing to face persecution, to openly desire God – these marks of the Christian are not the norm in the world. To comfort the mourning, to be pure in heart – these are also not the norms of our world. Yet we, as followers of Christ, are called to stand out from the world and to stand up against much of what the world values and pursues. Living out these ideals we will come to stand alongside those that the world devalues and marginalizes. In humble service we will minister to those close to the heart of God. May it be so.
Prayer: Lord God, lead me past self and closer to your heart. Open me to the folks and situations that break your heart. Use me to build up your vision for the world. Amen.
Verse 26: “Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called.”
Today Paul casts a vision of the wideness of God’s kingdom and love. It was a start, a beginning point. Since these days our understanding of the wideness of God’s love has grown and grown and grown.
Paul begins this section with an invitation to “think of what you were when you were called.” This is a great question for us to reflect on too. Who and what were you before Christ called you into a saving relationship? As we consider the wideness of God’s love today, let us ponder another question: Who and what would you be if you never heard the call of Jesus Christ upon your life?
Continuing on, Paul admits that most called by Jesus himself were not wise or influential or noble. Quite the opposite – they were considered foolish and weak by the world. Many who were called were lowly and despised. And yet the Lord called them. And because Christ called them, they received “righteousness, holiness, and redemption.” Praise be to God!
In spite of ample evidence of the wideness of God’s love, at times the church has struggled with this concept. We continue to struggle today. We love to claim that all are welcome and that we have “open doors.” Yet in the swath of Christianity humanity has added lots of “but”s. You’re welcome here but you can’t speak from the pulpit. Our doors are open but please fix that “sin” before you come in. Limits? Barriers? There are none in the wideness of God’s love.
Today’s “Disciplines” devotional offered this truth: “Some arrogantly claim the right to declare who gets to sit and eat” at the table of grace and love. Every single person is created and formed by God. Each of us carries the spark of the divine within us. Who are we to say that another child of God is worthy of or unworthy of receiving righteousness, holiness, and redemption?
Prayer: Lord God, when my eyes narrow and my heart starts to harden as I begin to judge another’s worthiness, rain down your powerful love from in high, washing me clean of all that may limit another’s access to the table. Amen.
Verse 23: “We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.”
Photo credit: Thanti Nguyen
In the first half of this week’s Epistle reading Paul both encourages the Corinthian church and he reminds them of the challenges they face. For example, in verse 18, he encourages them with the tangible power of the cross to save and he reminds them that much of the world still sees this as foolishness. To the worldly, the story of the cross was one of weakness and defeat.
Paul writes about Jews demanding “miraculous signs” and Greeks demanding “wisdom”. The Jews wanted the power of Christ demonstrated in amazing ways – a new version of the parting of the sea, if you will. The Greeks wanted to be argued into believing. Both groups were really saying, ‘Prove to me that Jesus is real, that he still has power.’ This remains the sticky point for many today. People still want proof. Today many think, ‘Yes, nice stories and some good examples to follow, but what will it do for my life today?’ So to many people today the cross remains a “stumbling block” and to others it appears as “foolishness.”
But, as Paul points out, the cross is also “the power of God and the wisdom of God.” To those who believe, the cross brings new life. In the cross we see God wisely recognizing what needed done for our transformation to be possible. In God’s wisdom it was identified and through God’s power the sacrifice was offered. It is because the price was paid that we can be made new again. Freed from the chains of this world we are able to live as new creations in Christ. Filled with joy and hope and peace and love and grace and mercy and forgiveness we live as examples of the power and wisdom of the cross. And this, my friends, is the proof that the world needs. Day by day, may the transformation wrought in us be the evidence that leads others to a saving faith in Jesus Christ.
Prayer: Lord God, through your power I am made again and again, each time a little more into who you created me to be. May this power at work in me be the story that others see, drawing them towards the Savior. Amen.
Verse 1: “Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain?”
Psalm 15 begins by posing a general question and then proceeds to unpack the answer. David begins by basically asking who is able to stand in God’s presence, day by day, moment by moment. This is a deep question of faith. David’s brief answers revolve around how we live out our faith in both our relationships with God and with each other.
Verse 2 addresses both relationships. David identifies those who are blameless and righteous and truthful as those who are able to abide with God. These three qualities should apply to all of our earthly relationships as well. In the next three verses David gives us some examples and counterexamples of how one who abides in God reflects or reveals these qualities. Such a person does not slander or speak slurs against others. Such a person despises evil and honors the faithful. Such a person keeps his or her word and does not take advantage of others. These are but a few insights into holy living. This is a limited list. There are many other ways that being blameless, righteous, and truthful are lived out in our lives.
The Psalm concludes with this verse: “He [or she] who does these things will never be shaken.” David is referring to these core qualities – being blameless, righteous, and truthful. How we live these out in all of our relationships reflects the condition of our relationship with Jesus and it reflects our faith out to the world. Do these reflections reveal you to be one who abides in the presence of the Lord?
Prayer: Lord God, how do my words and actions reflect my relationship with you? In those times when I am less than you call me to be, help me to hear the Holy Spirit’s voice and to respond well. In the moments when I am faithful, please shine through me, out into the world, out into the lives of others. Amen.
Verse 8: “God has shown you… what is good… what is required… To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
Photo credit: Simon Berger
As we turn to the second half of this week’s Old Testament passage, Micah asks what he should bring before the Lord. He wonders if burnt offerings would be enough. Maybe so if it were “thousands of rams” followed by “ten thousand rivers of oil?” That sounds like a lot. Or maybe something closer to home? Perhaps sacrifice a child – “the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” That feels like a lot. It felt like a lot was needed. The sin of Israel was great. Yet for God, restoring a relationship wasn’t about volume or about a huge but isolated proof of faith. It was much simpler. It was about the heart. In Micah’s day the Israelites were going through the motions required by the sacrificial system. To go through them a thousand or ten thousand times mattered not. To offer your firstborn and then to return to sinful living? Worthless.
Instead of hands and feet going through meaningless motions, God desired the heart of the people. God wanted to see hearts committed to what really mattered to God. In verses 8 we read, “God has shown you… what is good… what is required… To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” God sought people with hearts focused on justice, mercy, and humility. This is what is good. This is what is required. This is what really matters to God. The challenge for us is this: in our modern world, how do we live this out?
We live in a time when people are selfish and focused on material goods and social status. From this place it is difficult to see injustice, oppression, and pride as bad things. They are the means to achieving success. Yet these practices leave a wake of poverty and division and need. It is to these things that the eyes and heart of God are drawn. What is our response, our good and required response? It is not to write a check for $1,000 or to donate 10,000 meals or to sell our house to give money to some great cause. While good and likely helpful to others, these motions do not align our eyes and heart with God’s eyes and heart. Our response is really much simpler than these things. Very hard in our culture, yes, but simpler. What is good, what God required? A daily walk that focuses on justice for all, mercy and kindness to all, and humility as we seek to walk hand in hand with our God. Walking this way, our eyes and hearts will be drawn to the places and people that draw God’s eyes and heart. May it be so for you and for me.
Prayer: Lord God, it really is pretty basic, isn’t it? Step away from self and from all that the world says matters. Step into the circumstances and lives of people that matter to you – those needing to experience justice, those needing mercy, those requiring a humble servant’s presence. Use me in all of these ways, O God. Amen.
Verse 5: “My people, remember… remember your journey… that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord.”
Yesterday I co-led a workshop at a church about an hour south of where I live and serve. This unique congregation was birthed when four small churches came together. Just over thirty years ago I taught school for two years in one of these communities. As we drove down, I thought about those years and hoped that I would see some familiar faces. It was wonderful to get reacquainted and to remember our time together. I was also reminded that not all was wonderful. I was young and I was inexperienced. I learned a lot, some of it the hard way. Yet this too was good to remember. Even in hard times we learn and grow and change.
As Micah 6 opens God first lodges a case against Israel. Then God invites Israel to remember. The people have wandered from God. They are living outside of the covenant. Micah has come and has worked to call the people back into right relationship with God. To begin that journey, God invites the people to remember their rescue from slavery, to remember Moses, and to remember God’s guidance on their journey. Through Micah, God says, “My people, remember… remember your journey… that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord.” God is seeking to rekindle their faith, to get the people of God back on track. To remember can also call us into account. To remember can call us back to our roots, to our foundations. Taken together these processed can draw us back into right relationship with God as we find hope once again in our covenant with God.
Where are you today in your relationship with God? Are you walking in covenant love? If so, celebrate and rejoice! Are you wayward, in need of restoration? If so, remember how God has redeemed and guided you in the past. In that remembering, claim again the hope and love of God.
Prayer: Lord God, as I consider these questions, I find myself somewhere in the middle – mostly good in our relationship yet not quite completely devoted. So I ask you to draw me in deeper, to make me more wholly thine. May it be so, O God. Amen.
Verses 21-22: “Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat… and followed him.”
“Hurry up and wait.” Ever heard that expression? It usually comes when the last thing we want to do is wait. Now, that is most of the time, right? In general, we are not patient. Our culture teaches us the “right now” attitude. Yet when I think of Jesus’ life and ministry he was never in a rush. He took his time – often too much for those around him. He always had time for the one he encountered. Maybe this is partly why he calls Andrew and Simon, James and John. They too worked at an occupation that required and developed patience.
In our story today, though, when Jesus calls them to “Come, follow me,” they are anything but patient. Both pairs of brothers followed Jesus “immediately.” Do you ever wonder why? Yes, there must’ve been something about Jesus that led them to this radical decision – an aura, a charisma, a divinity? And maybe there’s another reason. Like all other Jews they’ve been waiting hundreds and hundreds of years for the promised Messiah. Jump at the chance that this might be the one!
And then there’s maybe this other, more practical reason. Today, in my life, when the Spirit of Christ invites me to action, be it in word or deed, I’ve found that a delayed response usually becomes a non-response. The “I’ll do that later, tomorrow…” never happens. Maybe a “right now” attitude is what’s needed. It mirrors Jesus’ approach: the person before me matters right now. Let ministry begin! May it be so.
Prayer: Lord God, create in me a spirit of “yes!” Pre-dispose me to action. Ready my hands and feet for whatever or whomever you place in my life. Amen.
Verse 17: “Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel.”
Yesterday we considered Paul’s call to unity in the church. We recognized the costs of bickering and infighting. These behaviors diminish the witness of the church and its members. Paul resisted the temptation to enter the fray, to claim his place. He certainly could have. He had that Damascus road encounter with the risen Christ. He had a deep knowledge of the Jewish faith – he was a Pharisee. Paul had built the church in Corinth from the ground up. His name was known and his letters were read throughout the Christian world. Paul could’ve claimed a place of power and authority for himself.
Many in Paul’s day and many in our day enjoy the limelight. In Paul’s day both rabbis and philosophers sought to gain large groups of followers. Today we ask one another how many friends we have on Facebook or how many followers we have on Twitter… In Paul’s day the powerful attached their names to building projects and social actions. Today we plaster names on everything from buildings to bowl games. These are but two examples of ways people seek recognition and to build popularity and status.
Stepping outside of the popularity contest, Paul states, “Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel.” Yes, baptism was important. It was an outward sign of an inward change. But the inward change came through knowing the good news of Jesus Christ. It was Christ’s life and example, magnified on the cross, that has the power to change and transform lives. Paul knew this with all of his heart. He had experienced it himself and poured all of himself into helping others to experience the power of Jesus Christ. May we do the same.
Prayer: Lord God, Christ, through the cross, changed everything. In one radical act of obedience Jesus reset the power imbalance. No longer would darkness reign. Light and love came into the world and gave all for our sake. Use me this day and every day to help people know the one who changed my life. Amen.
Verse 10: “I appeal to you… that all of you agree… no divisions among you… be perfectly united in mind and thought.”
Photo credit: Clay Banks
As we turn to our Epistle reading, Paul appeals to those in the church to find unity. There are quarrels and divisions in this church community. There are particulars to this strife – factions are wanting to follow different leaders – but this detail is secondary to resolving the bickering and fighting. Their infighting is tearing at the fibers of community and it is greatly diminishing the church’s witness to the world.
There will always be differences in our churches. Some people may, for example, like the gospel of Matthew better than the gospel of Mark. They like the fact that it has more stories and better connects to the Old Testament. But others prefer the more straight-forward, quicker pace of Mark. Both are right factually about each gospel. Both writings are valuable to Christians seeking to grow in their faith. Yet if both “sides” were to begin talking down to the other, using their gospel truth to bash the other side, then the focus would shift from the words and teachings of Jesus to the bickering and infighting of those in the church. That would not be a good thing.
Paul’s call is to be a community of faith “perfectly united in mind and thought.” Unity comes through having the mind of Christ, from speaking and acting as Christ did. In all things both big and small, may we begin in Christ and with his example. May it be so.
Prayer: Lord God, bring me back again and again to the one in whom we find our faith. Draw me to Christ’s example and to his humility and love. Ground me in these things always. Amen.
Reading: Isaiah 9:4 – “For as in the days of Midian, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor.”
Devotional writer Hannah Adair Bonner uses a great analogy in her writing on this verse. She invites us to remember a time when we carried too many grocery bags. For me it usually comes from the “I can make it in one trip” thought. She then asks us to recall how we felt when we made it to the kitchen or wherever it was that we plopped the bags down. Bonner then flips the scenario a bit, asking us to think of a time when someone came along and helped, relieving our burden, making sure that we could make it. Bringing her point home, she notes that the burdens many carry in life are “much more complicated than groceries.”
In our short text God was the one who came alongside Israel as she struggled under a burden. The bar and rod of the oppressor was heavy upon the nation’s shoulders. God saw the struggle and responded by shattering the yoke. God broke it into itty bitty pieces. What oppressed people in your circles or in your community? Is it a lack of resources – food, shelter, clothing, heat, water, medical care, education, employment? It is a hard circumstance – addiction, abuse, incarceration, neglect, illness? Or are they under the rod of injustice or racism or sexism or some other evil? And the reality for most folks who are burdened is this: they are not carrying just one bag.
How will you respond to what you see? How will I? Let us begin as God did, coming alongside those who are burdened. Then may we seek to bring relief. And as our relationship and understanding grows, then may we seek to be breakers of rods and bars. May it be so as we seek to reveal God to this hurting and damaged world.
Prayer: Lord God, open my eyes and my heart. Seeing and feeling, put me to doing. Amen.
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